The time when I forgot my teaching bag at home...

I have always wanted to start a series of blogposts, talking about funny moments, improvisation moments and projects!

And now it's the time!

Some years ago, I was working for a big language school in my hometown and I had lots of classes and lots of students.

The time for Thanksgiving was approaching and I had this big project planned.

First of all Iwant to say that Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Greece, but I usually talk about holidays and celebrations of English speaking countries and this is also an opportunity for learning new vocabulary, playing games and speak more.

The plan was to show the students traditional Thanksgiving food, I had already made colourful copies with the vocabulary and games and activities like mix and match, memory, find the picture and much more. The next step was for the students to make a poster with the things they were grateful. So again, I had bought big colourful paperboards, glue, colourful markers and post-its.

Before I had gone to school, though, I had another appointment and guess what! I forgot all the bags with the materials there! It was really far away, so when I got to school, I could not get back to get my bags and return in time.

What do I do now? Disaster!

I  quickly search Thanksgiving food vocabulary on my mobile phone, download pictures and send them to the schools printer. No colour, but that was ok.

So I put them on the board and intruduce the new vocabulary to my students. 

Instead of the matching exercise we play hangman on he white board instead. 

They make their own memory game with the words using paper from their notebooks and instead of he pictures we write the words in English and Greek.

For our gratitude project, we take A4 papers from the school printer and the students write and draw with their own pens and markers (lending each other things).

So it turns out the day was not ruined.

Students had fun, learned new vocabulary, found out information about a celebration and created a wonderful project.

I don't really know when we will be able to enjoy games and projects with our students face to face again.

One thing is for sure, sometimes last minute ideas can get even better than our lesson plan!

To be continued!